Outdoors

The tarpon is one of the world’s finest sporting fish. Stunningly beautiful and known as the Silver King, their aerobatic leaps make them a favourite of anglers worldwide. From March to July thousands of tarpon pass through the harbour in Key West en route to the spawning grounds and fishermen are attracted into town for the chance to pit their wits against them.

There are many varying fishing styles for catching tarpon, the method varying depending on the type of water that you are fishing. Tarpon can be caught on sand or mangrove flats and also in shallow river inlets. In this case the favoured method is either fishing a lure or a fly (with a strong fly rod. At some venues for example Islamorada the favoured method is livebaiting with small fish such as pilchards or herring. The preferred fishing style in Key West is using a by-product from shrimp fishing. Let’s explain what is meant by shrimp boat trash. Many shrimp fishing boats ply the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and besides catching shrimp they also catch a lot of small fish called menhaden. These are bagged up in onion sacks and sold as bait to the light tackle fishing boats in Key West.

The method involves the Captain cutting the manhaden into small pieces and continually throwing them behind the anchored boat to attract the tarpon. The fishermen use a whole menhaden on the hook, and it is drifted back in the current towards the feeding tarpon.

The tackle suggested when fishing for tarpon in Key West is extremely simple. Our favourite rod for tarpon fishing is the ABU Conolon Boat, 7’9” 12-20lb test curve. It sells here in the UK at £74.99. There is also a 3 piece version of the rod (the Conolon Boat Traveller) which might be more suited to the visiting angler. That one retails at £79.99 in the UK. Incidentally, I use that very same rod whilst fishing for sturgeon on the Fraser River near Vancouver and last year landed my biggest ever fish with a length of 9ft 1inch and weighing…who knows, there was just the two of us fishing and there’s no way we could lift such a beast but we estimated it at around 400 lbs. Anyhow, returning to tarpon fishing. The most popular reels for tarpon fishing are the Shimano TLD 15 or TLD 20 lever drag multipliers. The TLD 15 sells for around £80 in the UK, whereas the TLD 20 is about £15 more expensive. Whatever reel you decide on, it has to be super free running, since you’re attempting to make your bait drift down in the tide at the same speed as the pieces being thrown in by the Captain. I prefer to use the bigger TLD 20 because the larger spool turns slower when you are running your bait down in the tide and it needs less turns of the handle to reel in when your bait has drifted as far you want. You will want the reel fully loaded with line, I go for the Ande grey in either 15lb or 20lb breaking strain. At the end of the line is tied a 10 foot leader of 50 lb fluorocarbon and a large circle hook. Naturally all of the fishing boats have excellent tackle available free of charge should you not have your own.

OK, now down to the fishing. Your captain will have motored out to one of the top tarpon spots, perhaps the entrance to Key West Harbour, the yacht basin, the North West Channel or maybe Bokacheeka. The boat is anchored at the bow and if there are other boats fishing they’ll probably be moored only a few feet to one side or the other. The idea is that if everybody is chumming then there will be a good stream of bait going down to the tarpon, keeping them in one substantial shoal rather than splitting it up. The skipper will start chumming with the pieces of menhaden whilst you hook a whole fish onto your hook. There’s a particular way to hook these baits but don’t worry, the skipper will demonstrate how it’s done. You now let your little fish drift down the current, paying particular attention to your line as it runs from the reel spool. A bite can be quite subtle and will normally be just a speeding up of the line leaving the spool. As soon as you see a bite you need to reel like hell….don’t strike !!. The magic of a circle hook is that it seemingly hooks the fish itself once you tighten the line by reeling in as fast as possible.

When a fish is hooked all hell will be let loose, the fish will likely leap out of the water and it will definitely start running towards Cuba !!. Remember when playing a tarpon that if he jumps he’ll get rid of the hook unless you swiftly lower the rod to lessen the tension on the line. This dropping of the rod is known as “bowing to the King”, and you’ll get plenty of stick from anybody else on the boat if you lose a fish because it jumped and you didn’t bow. If the hooked fish is a decent size the skipper will let the anchor go and set off in pursuit of the fish. I’ve released fish that were hooked a mile or more away from where they are finally released. It can be a long and hard fight but with a bit of luck you will eventually have the tarpon alongside the boat ready for a quick photograph before it is safely released to fight again some other day. I recall a ‘first-timer’ fishing with us one year. He hooked his first tarpon and as it jumped he excitedly asked “how big is that” to which one wag replied “about forty minutes” !!.